The dell’anima Team May Colonize the Bowery Wine Co.

May 6, 2011

Although things at the Bowery Wine Co. have been mostly quiet since its Die Hard Yuppie Scum days, the East 1st Street bar is once again on the blogs, thanks to (of course!) the CB3 SLA agenda.

EV Grieve combed through the agenda for the May 16 meeting and discovered that Epicurean Management has applied for a license transfer for the wine bar. Further digging on the CB3 website revealed that the applicant is August Cardona, Epicurean’s CEO and the part-owner of dell’anima, L’Artusi, and Anfora. The plans indicate that Cardona intends to buy Bowery Wine Co. and expand into a space next door; there will be 50 tables and potentially outdoor seating and a sidewalk café. It will serve “rustic Italian” food.

The company’s rep would neither confirm nor deny Cardona’s intentions, offering instead the standard stonewall: “EMCo. is constantly working on and taking steps towards developing new opportunities.” One of those opportunities, of course, is Ellabess, their new “seasonal American” restaurant in the Nolitan Hotel.

Like the Nolitan, Avalon Bowery Place is a rather soulless-looking pile that seems to appeal to the segment of the population that would like Lower Manhattan to resemble suburban Atlanta. It doesn’t exactly scream “rustic Italian food,” but then, it wasn’t so long ago that the Bowery itself didn’t scream “wood-fired pizza” or “foie gras torchon,” either. Regardless, we are expecting renewed cries of “die, yuppie scum” at the CB3 meeting.

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